The Internet has grown at a remarkable pace, and has become firmly entrenched in nearly all aspects of society. Whereas the Internet initially was limited to purely academic and government endeavors, the Internet has now become an important avenue of commercial activity, not to mention an important source of educational, commercial and entertainment-related information. Moreover, in addition to simply operating as a source of information, the Internet provides a mechanism for bringing together entities from across the globe. As an example, for business enterprises, the Internet provides the ability to interact electronically with customers, as well as suppliers, distributors and other business partners.
An important component of the Internet is the World Wide Web, or simply “the Web”, which supports a client-server protocol where information is exchanged between end users (clients) and various interconnected servers, predominantly in the form of Hypertext Transfer Markup Language (HTML) files (also referred to as documents or pages). HTML files often include or reference textual information as well as graphics, icons, images, sound, video, and/or executable programs. HTML files are typically linked to one another via hypertext links, so that a user viewing one file can select a hypertext link in that file to initiate the retrieval of another file. Often, related files, or files managed by the same enterprise, are organized together into a web “site,” with the related files generally stored on the same server or on a commonly-owned group of servers.
As the Internet has grown more sophisticated, web sites have become more complex, comprehensive and extensive in scope. In addition, for a business enterprise, a web site has become somewhat of a “front door” to customers and business partners, such that a customer's or partner's initial impressions about the web site can reflect directly on how they perceive that enterprise. As such, the quality, accuracy, completeness of the information, or “content”, presented on a web site, as well as the functionality and navigability of the web site, can have a significant effect on customer and business partner relations. As a result, substantial resources are often expended in ensuring that the content of a web site is accurate, current, complete, and easily accessed.
Moreover, as with any published content (whether electronic or non-electronic in nature), web site content can potentially expose an enterprise to significant legal liability. For example, marketing claims made on a web site can raise concerns with respect to false or misleading advertising claims and improper disparagement of competitive products or services. Moreover, certain information may be confidential and not appropriate for general viewing on a web site, e.g., if intellectual property rights are involved, or if the information is covered by non-disclosure obligations to business partners or customers. Adequate safeguards therefore must often be implemented to ensure that web site content avoids unnecessary exposure to legal liability for an enterprise.
An example of a typical commercial web site might be a web site related to a line of server computers offered by an enterprise. On such a web site, it would not be uncommon to find information such as marketing and product information, accessory, peripheral and software information, product support information, technical information, etc. In addition, such a web site may include executable programs available for download (e.g., patches and upgrades), user forums, and an e-commerce system that supports the purchase of equipment, accessories and software. Such a web site may also include some mechanism for contacting an enterprise, e.g., for customer support or sales issues. Some web sites of this nature may also include comparative advertising information that compares an enterprise's line of servers to those of its competitors.
Creating a web site of such a magnitude is often a daunting task, and typically requires the collaboration of a number of authors that create content, web developers that format the content into appropriate HTML documents with a consistent look and feel, and various managers and reviewers that ensure content accuracy, currency and compliance with legal requirements. Particularly when a web site is related to a wide variety of topics, the various individuals involved in creating the web site may require different backgrounds and expertise. Thus, for example, a web site regarding a line of servers might require authors, reviewers, etc. experienced in different fields such as hardware, software, marketing, technical support, etc.
Moreover, web sites are typically extremely dynamic in nature, and are often updated with new content on a frequent basis, e.g., to incorporate new product releases, new support issues, new pricing structures, etc. As a result, the content presented in a web site will typically be in a constant state of flux.
Given the significant manpower resources required to create and update a web site, management of a web site, in general, is often cumbersome and extremely manually-intensive. Given also the large number of individuals that may be involved with various aspects of web site development and updating, interfacing the various individuals to ensure that all content is accurate and up-to-date is often haphazard and inefficient. To date, only a few automated tools, with rather limited utility, have been made available to assist web site managers in managing the content in their web sites.
Therefore, a significant need exists in the art for a more structured and automated manner of actively managing web site content, in particular, to reduce management overhead through improved collaboration between the individuals involved in web site creation, development and management.